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The REAL reason why Blender has no Node Previews

6

Luis Cherubini writes:

A long requested Node Preview feature has finally arrived as an Addon, is it really worth it? Of course we have Node wrangler, and you can place it on every step of your graph but, from a learnability standpoint, being able to see all steps at once is crucial for beginners in the shader editor. In this episode we'll discuss why this implementation might be more difficult than expected.

About the Author

Avatar image for Luis Cherubini
Luis Cherubini

Using Blender since 2007! Loves LEGOs and Mechanical designs. Working at Sketchfab. Check his Youtube Channel for Addon Reviews and everything 3D!

6 Comments

  1. I see a lot of people complaining this addon is too expensive.
    Well... Maybe for someone who is not making a living with Blender?

    Blender addons are very affordable compared to other solutions in 3D applications, and I feel most addons are sold too cheaply.
    If something costs 35 bucks, and at the end of the week it saved me 6 hours of fiddling with shaders, it already paid itself back.

    But that's me....

    • By that logic the Blender Foundation should be charging for Blender

      "I see a lot of people complaining this Blender is too expensive.
      Well... Maybe for someone who is not making a living with Blender?

      Blender is very affordable compared to other solutions in 3D applications, and I feel it is sold too cheaply. If something costs 200 bucks, and at the end of the year it saved me hundreds of hours , it already paid itself back.

      But that's me...."

      This trend of charging $$$ even for minor addons hurts the community spirit of Blender. I have written some addons for Blender very useful to me but I haven't released them publicly because I can't be bothered making the effort to people who wouldn't return the favor.

  2. It's a good AddOn but the development that more and more AddOns cost money is totally opposed of the main Program Blender. What would be, if Blender Foundstion say "from next week we take 2000 € for a licence?

    • Even the BF cannot run without money.

      Don't think of it as a payment then, but a donation to the developer.
      We all need money to live, and it's also a way to keep the developer interested in maintaining and evolving an addon.
      And if you don't agree with paid addons, don't buy them. ;)
      But lots of people are happy with places like Gumroad or BlenderMarket.

      And as stated by Rob, some of us do this for a living, and a stable addon is vital for production.

  3. I've been working on digital art literally since the early 90s, started in Ms paint and ended in Photoshop and now blender. Of all the dozens and dozens of art software I've spent money on blender takes the cake with well over a grand in just plugins over the past decade and not to mention the Nvidia gfx cards, etc. Now obviously that isn't a blender cost directly, but ya it can get expensive.

  4. Making money from developing software for open source programs is perfectly fine under the terms of the GPL. People often confuse freedom with free, as in no cost. Ton and the Blender Foundation have never said you can't make money by selling add-ons, shaders or models, etc. I have several paid add-ons that I can't live without from a time saving point of view, not to mention that they can do things that are almost, if not totally impossible in vanilla Blender.
    As has already been pointed out, Blender add-ons are also insanely inexpensive compared to stuff for Max, Maya etc.

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